In the fifties, when I was growing up in North Carolina, Miss Lawrence was known in garden circles all over the state as she had been an active gardener and writer for a number of years. I am pleased to see "A Southern Garden" which she wrote in 1942 back in print. RE-reading her words is like listening to an old friend.

She lived and gardened first in Raleigh, then in Charlotte (both Zone 8). The winters in Zone 7 were a bit colder, but many of the plants she recommended for Zone 8, survived in Zone 7 where my family lived and gardened. Given global warming, I think much of Zone 7, which extends right up the East Coast--almost to New England (?)--is now verging on becoming Zone 8 -- at least the part that lies east of the "fall line" on the coastal plain.

I have lived in Arlington, Virginia for a number of years, and have seen a decided shift in the climate in my area. Crepe Myrtles that used to live no futher north than Fredericksburg and die back to the ground in Arlington don't. And Catbirds, a real southerner are nesting in my yard. Both of these are Zone 8 transplants.

Even though I am technicaly in the lower edge of Zone 7, I can grow almost anything Miss Lawrence discusses in her book "A Southern Garden" in my garden. My house is on the "fall line" however, and just west of me the winters are a tad too cold for some things. But if you live in Zone 7, and like a plant try it. If it lives great, if not you've gained some wonderful experience.

Most importantly, pay attention to Miss Lawrence when she describes the 'old timey gardens' -- some say there is nothing new under the sun, and though that might not be entirely correct, many of the old plant forms she discusses are still extant.

This book is a window into the way our Grandmother's gardened. Miss Lawrence describes in her own wonderful and modest style where she purchased plants and how plants she admired performed either in her garden or in the garden's of her friend's. Her descriptions are informative and often humorous. Anyone serious about gardening in the South should own this book as a reference guide. Even a non-gardener would enjoy this lovely book.

Broken down into monologues for men, women, or either and varying in length from 5 minutes to 30 seconds, almost all of these monologues are great options for young actors too good and too sexy for the same old same old. These are smart young sexy writers writing for smart young sexy actors. So if you're a smart young sexy actor, buy the damn book.

This book did a wonderful job of exploring the character of Zeena. This book, even though it draws from an earlier work, is one of the more original books that I've read in a long while.

Trying to spin a tale from a classic cannot be an easy feat, but this story really captured me. For anyone who liked Ethan Frome, this book is for you. A carefully weaved story with characters that are as real as they get.

The characters came alive in this story, and Elizabeth Cooke told it wonderfully. I just wish it was longer.

Written when Wharton's own marriage was failing, this tale of first love won and lost is a bittersweet, moving novel which melds Wharton's two worlds beautifully - high society, and rural New England. Her personal favorite of all the novels she wrote, Edith Wharton captures the very essence of love and longing in this beautiful, sensual story of Charity Royall and Lucius Harney. Born to a poor mother, Mr. Royall rescues Charity and raises her as his own daughter, but when his wife dies of consumption, and Charity begins to ripen into a lovely woman, Mr. Royal realizes that his feelings for her are deeper than he imagined. Repulsed by his offer of marriage, Charity instead turns her attentions to the handsome young architect from Boston, Mr. Lucius Harney, who is visiting North Dormer for the summer. As summer unfurls in North Dormer like the Red Rambler rose in Charity's garden, Charity and Lucius' love blossoms, burns hot, and spills over into sexual union. Wharton's language of love is extraordinary - beautiful, sensual, and filled with all the fire of first love. I won't ruin the ending for you by revealing it, but it is poignant, achingly human, and ultimately fitting that Charity ends up where she does. Bittersweet and gorgeously written, this is a magical book not to be missed.

Leaving behind the world of New York high society that is the subject of many of her greatest novels (The House of Mirth , The Age of Innocence), Edith Wharton focuses her attention on an entirely different scene: a tiny, isolated New England village in early 20th century America. Her heroine, Charity Royall, is young, working class, ill-educated, rough-mannered - in short, about as different from Wharton herself as a character can be. And yet Wharton renders her and her world with remarkable sympathy.

As always, Wharton vividly delineates the painfully constricted circumstances of her heroine's world. And make no mistake: the community that Charity lives in is almost unimaginably narrow and isolated, in a way that no community with access to the internet, TV, etc. could possibly be now, in 21st century America.

Part of what makes this novel so acutely moving is Wharton's depiction of how Charity's whole world opens up as love and passion enter her life. It's touching to see Charity's underlying sensitivity and sensuality - and her curiosity about the world - blossom as her relationship with Harney progresses, and at the same time heartbreaking to realize that, beneath her bravado, she is utterly dependent on him - because her gender, and her lack of money, education, etc., leave her with so few options.

The pleasures of this novel are many; I will limit myself to mentioning a few. Among the features of this novel which makes it so powerful and evocative are the beautifully rendered descriptions of the seasons and the natural environment. The lush portrayals of the plants, flowers, and the natural landscape highlight the erotic tensions inherent in the story.

I also admired the wonderful way each of the places in the novel - the village of North Dormer, the town of Nettleton, the mysterious "Mountain" - take on a distinctive character, and how all of them, taken together, become a microcosm of the world. This symbolism adds a resonance that gives this seemingly "small" novel grandeur and heft. Best of all, the symbolism seems like a totally natural and organic part of the story, not at all forced or strained.

The 4th of July episode is a dazzling setpiece that not only gives the reader some delightful social history about what such celebrations were like in early 20th century America, but also serves to underscore the themes of desire (those sexually charged fireworks, and all those enticing, yet unavailable items in the store windows!) and of Charity's journey from village to the world, from innocence to experience.

This novel also contains some of Wharton's most accomplished characterizations. The complex, morally ambiguous Lawyer Royall is, I think, a masterpiece. (Though I'll admit I was less satisfied with the portrayal of Harney - I think Wharton lets him off the hook).

Finally, this is a book about female sexual desire, and as such it probably broke new ground in the Anglo-American novel (Kate Chopin's The Awakening is the only earlier novel I know that handles this theme with comparable frankness). What Wharton is really great at is dramatizing the paradoxes of desire: the way desire feeds itself and leaves you forever wanting more, and also how desire - the sighing, dreaming, longing - can become an exquisitely painful/deliciously pleasurable end in itself.

Ultimately, like so many of Wharton's novels, Summer is about women's choices, and it presents a remarkably clear-eyed view of a strong-willed young woman's pragmatic yet painful reckoning, as she struggles to make the best of the raw deal society has foist upon her. Charity's fate has the semi-tragic inevitability of so many other Wharton heroines, yet here the writing is suffused with a tenderness that rarely, if ever, appears in Wharton's other works. Long after I put this book down, it continued to haunt me.

Charity Royall is a girl from a small town who spends her days face down in the grass dreaming. Enter Lucius Harney, artistic, city guy who for a few months sweeps Charity off of her feet, rescuing her from small town life in North Dormer. Charity turns out to be little more than a side dish for Harney who goes on to marry Ms Balch; Charity is left depressed, pregnant and forced to marry the middle-age man who raised her, to save her name. I love all things Wharton so I may be a bit biased but I disagree that the ending was poor. It's pretty standard that Wharton's books do not have a happy ending; the characters have an amazing, brief love affair, but in the end, there is always some impediment, as in Ethan Frome and The Age of Innocence. For the realists out there, read this book; those who must have a happy ending, stick to fairytales!

Prior to reading The House of Mirth, I had read both The Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome. The House of Mirth deals with moneyed New York families, as does The Age of Innocence, but The House of Mirth has a more serious tone and a more tragic storyline, in that the main character is a woman who is a victim of her times. Lily Bart lives in an era when to be poor is the worst punishment of New York society. The idea of having to work for a living is untenable. Her goal in life is to marry well, but she struggles with the idea of abandoning her goals for true happiness just to marry well. The story deals with her misadventures in society, and the sometimes painful price her relatives and friends extract from her in exchange for financial support. This is a very enjoyable, although sad, novel, and I recommend it particularly to those who have already read some Edith Wharton and wish to round out their selection of writing.

High school students are often assigned Ethan Frome, and the Age of Innocence gained many readers because of the movie, but this is the Edith Wharton book that everyone should read. In many ways, this is similar to a Jane Austen book in which a member of the upper echelon of society has money problems and needs to marry well in order to stay at the same level of society. Forces and other people are contriving against her, but there seems to be at least one man who would be a good match for reasons of love. The first twist here is that the good match is not financially well off and therefore won't be able to support the heroine as she wants to be supported.

Lily Bart was orphaned many years ago, and her family had been financially ruined before that. However, she is accustomed to beautiful things and wants to continue to live at the top level of society. Unfortunately, her heart and soul long for more than these creature comforts. She yearns for excitement, intellectual and emotional honesty and probably true love, although she is confused about that. As she has gotten towards her late 20s, her prospects are dwindling and the only person who has the resources to support her and is already a part of polite society is Percy Gryce, a singularly boring man.

Lily rebels against Gryce just as she is about to marry him when she has a couple of heartfelt conversations with Lawrence Selden, a person she decides she might love, but who makes clear that he is not rich enough to support her as well as she should be supported.

Her choices other than Gryce are slim. There is Simon Rosedale, who is portrayed as an upwardly mobile person and therefore undesirable. He is also Jewish, which Wharton never overtly says is a problem with him for Lily, but probably figures into Lily's calculus (Wharton mainly talks about his Jewishness in the context of saying that Rosedale is more patient and able to face disappointment than others in his position because of what his people have dealt with over the centuries).

I have to admit that, unlike Ethan Frome and The Age of Innocence, it took me a while to get into this book. Perhaps, I picked up this book to read a story of Old New York and manners and was not ready for such an intense character study. But once I got to page 100, the last 250 pages went by in a flash. It is beautiful and eminently interesting. You will be interested in every twist in the story.

A couple of words of caution. If you buy this edition with the Anna Quindlen introduction, DON'T READ THE INTRODUCTION FIRST. It gives away too much in the first page--when I stopped reading it until after I finished--and the rest of the introduction gives away the rest of the plot. Finally, as with Jane Austen books, the actions of the male characters are often either inscrutable or irrational. It may be that men actually acted like this in the early 20th Century (or 19th for Austen). But I think it more likely that Wharton is misconstruing the male characters in ways that male authors almost always do with female characters. But this is a minor flaw, especially since Lily is so central to this book.

I stumbled upon a review of the recent film of THE HOUSE OF MIRTH in the TLS and, in order to have the novel firmly fixed in my mind (that is, before the lush, seductive images of film forever eradicated Wharton's novel from me) I dragged my copy off the shelf for a re-read. It had been 16 years since I last read of Lily Bart and her life, and I didn't realize how much I had missed her. For me, this is one of the great reading experiences, one of a handful that make reading a book the deeply moving and human exchange that it is. Despite the distance of wealth, property, time and manners, Wharton manages to make Lily's world and life palpable to anyone who will listen. The clash of money, morals, personality and circumstance is infinitely developed and played out in front of a never fading natural world. Once again, I was deeply moved by Lily Bart and at the end, felt I had lost someone myself.

An engaging account of Victorian life and women is presented through the eyes of Frances E. Willard, woman extraordinaire. Willard, widely known in the United States and abroad for her social reform efforts, discovered the bicycle at the age of fifty-three. Although she was not in good health, she was still determined to dare and take chances and, most importantly, urged other women to do so. Willard believed that the experience of mastering a bicycle would give a woman the experience of mastering her own personal destiny. Thus, we are treated to an amusing account of how Willard mastered "Gladys", her bicycle. Some charming pictures of Willard and her bicycle are included.

However, the most interesting and entertaining aspect of the book is found near the end in a section by Lisa Larrabee entitled, "Women and Cycling: The Early Years". Some new and unusual facts accompanied by sketches and pictures make the article not only enchanting but an important contribution to the history of cycling. Did you know that all sorts of maladies were thought to occur if a woman cycled? A woman could develop "bicycle eye" caused by prolonged raising of the eyes while the head was lowered in a riding position. Or even worse, a woman could ruin the "feminine organs of matrimonial necessity"! Also fascinating were some of the many accessories especially for women. One was called "Cherry's Screen". It was a device that blocked the view of a lady's ankles and feet, and also prevented her skirt from blowing about. It rather looked like batwings. Larrabee combines humor and historical fact to allow a glimpse of Victorian life for the female and to explain how the bicycle led to the eventual emancipation of women.

Anyone who enjoys cycling would find this book a great conversation piece and a welcome addition to his or her library.

In Fanfare for Elizabeth, Ms. Sitwell gives us a striking account of love, betrayal, and religion as it unfolds in the court of King Henry VIII. She deftly navigates through Henry's court and his notorioulsy fickle love life. We hear something of Elizabeth and her youthful hardships (exiled to a summer estate, a toothache at the age of three, a dearth of nice dresses) only as asides in this grand drama of Henry and his struggles with wives and Popes.

Ms. Sitwell is an extremely talented writer, and there is no doubt that the book was well researched. Why then, was I so disappointed with it? Because the book is not about Elizabeth I, Queen of England. It's about her father.

Fanfare for Elizabeth is a lovely, lightweight account of Henry's adult life. The book is charming in it's style and comes across as rather quaint (Katherine Howard's teenage indiscretions are never directly addressed, nor are Henry's adult ones). The book ends with a vignette of Elizabeth in her early teens, still oblivious of the grandeur that awaits her. Fanfare for Elizabeth is not a bad book - it's just not what you think it should be.

This is an interesting book, enough so that I wish it were a great one. The generous delving into Hadewijch of Antwerp, her mysticism and its rights, right to the essence of Hadewigian spirituality-- there are some fine passages illumined with Bouyer's considerable gifts, and a superb translation (by Mother Columba Hart) of a Hadewijch spring aubade that leaves you pinned to its two pages for a spell! Bouyer's thought is lean and clean, and admirable for that, but pointlessly smug with a really old-fashioned modernism. Some of his remarks on Elizabeth of the Trinity betray this tendency, and in fact nearly indicate that he hasn't understood her mystic gifts one whit, however well-schooled his observations are. This affectation is less noticable in his remarks on Therese Martin, although he reckons Elizabeth Catez's family "more open to the world and generally more cultured" than the Martins. He loves Edith Stein most of all, of course, and he manages some genuinely interesting insights into a rather overexposed spirituality. The lines he draws between Stein and Husserl are interesting enough, but nothing new, I think because he's apparently miles from grasping the living charism of Carmel. While he devotedly mentions Teresa- "such a scatterbrain, the copies of whose spiritual writings betray superficiality and a pretentious vacuum on every page"- Fr. Bouyer might benefit most from reading again not only the 'Life', but 'The Book of Foundations' as well, to receive, hopefully, what he has not yet learned-- interestingly, the very Thing received freely, learned quickly and lived profoundly by Elizabeth of the Trinity. Predictable scholarship, book has no soul, take a pass.